PM Khan Voices Concerns Over Ethnic Cleansing Reports in India

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday urged the international community to consider the alarming situation of ‘ethnic cleansing of Muslims’ as the Indian government prepares to strip 1.9 million people of Assam state of their citizenship under what it calls National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The premier took to Twitter and stated: “Reports in Indian and international media on Modi Govt’s ethnic cleansing of Muslims should send alarm bells ringing across the world that the illegal annexation of Kashmir is part of a wider policy to target Muslims.”

Reports in Indian and international media on Modi Govt’s ethnic cleansing of Muslims should send alarm bells ringing across the world that the illegal annexation of Kashmir is part of a wider policy to target Muslims.https://t.co/QmjTDyaGVV

Almost two million people in Assam were left facing the possibility of statelessness on Saturday after the Indian state’s government published a contentious citizenship list.

A total of 31.1 million people were included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC), leaving out 1.9 million people, according to a statement from the Assam government. Last year, India had effectively stripped four million people in Assam of citizenship, sparking fears of mass deportations of Muslims from the northeastern state.

The draft National Register of Citizens (NRC), published last year, included only those able to prove they were in Assam before 1971 when millions fled Bangladesh’s war of independence into the state. Critics say it is the latest move by the right-wing government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to advance the rights of India’s Hindu majority at the expense of its many minorities.